It was a regular season game billed as a playoff contest when Freedom traveled to Memorial Gymnasium last Friday to take on rival Liberty.

Both teams needed wins to keep their playoff hopes alive and Liberty did that, for at least one night, following a 56-45 victory on their home court.

Jaevan Dobbins scored a career-high 22 points to help give the Hurricanes (10-11, 6-8) life for one more night, as they needed to defeat the Patriots (8-14, 6-8) to keep their playoff hopes alive heading into last Saturday's contest against Pocono Mountain West (more on that later).

"This was the way a locker room was supposed to sound after a win," said Liberty head coach Chad Landis about the 'Canes enjoyment after beating Freedom. "We have to turn the page very fast because if we don't win [against PMW], it'll be short term joy. We know that and we've talked about that for the last couple weeks."

And for as well as Liberty knew that, the result and their end of season run didn't come to fruition, as the Hurricanes joined the Patriots on the sidelines of this year's District 11 tournament, as Liberty fell at Pocono Mountain West 86-60 Saturday afternoon.

Liberty trailed 59-51 heading into the final quarter on the road on Saturday, but a 27-9 fourth quarter run by the Panthers put out any hope of the Hurricanes qualifying for districts.

It was the same feeling that Freedom head coach Joe Stellato had after Friday's season-ending loss. The defeat kept the Patriots a game under .500 in the LVC and gave them a bitter sweet ending despite how far this team fought over the course of the season.

"These four seniors that we had this year were unbelievable and I wanted to keep coaching them," Stellato said. "They'll learn from this and become great young men. We didn't get many rebounds and we went 4-for-20 from behind the arc, so you're not going to win a game like that when those two things go against us."

Liberty led 21-19 at the break against Freedom, but started to establish themselves in the interior right out of the gate, getting inside buckets from DeShawn Oyeniyi (12 points) and Dobbins to lead 25-21.

Nigel Long, who was the only consistent source of offense for Freedom on the night, led the Pates with 18 points and his second triple of the night gave Freedom a 26-25 lead in the third, which started a mini string of three-point shots for the Pates, as they connected from behind the arc on three straight possessions, giving them a 32-31 lead with 3:30 in the third.

But that was all the offensive momentum Freedom would get the rest of the way, as Liberty outscored the Pates 19-13 in the fourth quarter and carried a nine-point lead over the final three minutes en route to a comfortable win.

Obviously, the comfort level for Liberty dropped on Saturday, as it's the first time in Landis' six-year tenure that the Hurricanes haven't made the district tournament and the first time since the 2004-2005 basketball season that Liberty will not be involved in the postseason.